Judge: No attorney yet for Africa terror defendant

FILE - This file image from the FBI website shows Abu Anas al-Libi, an al-Qaeda leader connected to the 1998 embassy bombings in eastern Africa and wanted by the United States for more than a decade. On Friday, Oct. 11, 2013, a New York judge said that Al-Libi must arrive in New York and prove he cannot afford a lawyer before a public defender can be appointed to represent him. (AP Photo/FBI, File)

By LARRY NEUMEISTER
Associated Press

Published: October 11, 2013;Last modified: October 11, 2013 02:24PM

NEW YORK — A Libyan man under indictment in the deadly 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa must arrive in New York and prove he cannot afford a lawyer before a public defender can be appointed to represent him, a Manhattan judge said Friday.

U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan rejected an application from David E. Patton, the head of the Federal Defenders of New York, to appoint an attorney for Abu Anas al-Libi.

The 49-year-old al-Libi was seized last Saturday and has been undergoing questioning aboard a U.S. Navy warship in the Mediterranean. He is charged in Manhattan federal court with conspiracy to kill officers and employees of the United States at the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Near-simultaneous bombings in August 1998 at those embassies killed 224 people, including a dozen Americans.

In his application, Patton relied on a part of federal criminal code rules requiring that a person making an arrest outside the United States take the defendant “without unnecessary delay” before a magistrate judge.

Federal prosecutors argued that the application is premature in part because al-Libi “has not been criminally arrested.”

“Rather, he has been detained by the United States Armed Forces, acting under their own legal authorities,” the government told Kaplan.

The judge wrote that he was “mindful of the fact that Mr. Patton’s concerns may include the legality of the defendant’s current detention, assuming that he is not detained pursuant to an arrest on this indictment.”

Kaplan did not offer any guidance on ways Patton could raise that concern with military officials.

The judge said a decision whether to go forward with a criminal prosecution based on the Manhattan indictment is a decision for the executive branch of government.

“It remains to be seen whether such a prosecution will go forward,” Kaplan said.

A message for comment sent to Patton Friday was not immediately returned.

Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai, known by his alias Abu Anas al-Libi, has been on the FBI’s most wanted terrorists list since it was introduced shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. A reward of $5 million was offered for his capture. The indictment against him claims his role in the 1998 bombings was to scout one of the targeted embassies. His family and former associates have denied he was ever a member of al-Qaida and said he has lived an ordinary life since coming home in 2011.

Al-Liby was captured as he returned to his Tripoli home from morning prayers.